


Therese Loved the Woods

by akmyers



Category: Original Work
Genre: Death, F/M, Horror, Love, Monsters, Romance, Short Story, no actual blood relation, pseudoincest (brother and foster sister)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:08:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28298736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akmyers/pseuds/akmyers
Summary: The woods gave us no trouble. We send no one in, and nothing came out... at least not until her.





	Therese Loved the Woods

No one goes in the woods. When I was young, there were tales of monsters and trees that grew so thick and close together that you couldn't see the sky through the twisted mess of branches. There were stories of grown men venturing forth and never returning. Children caught close to the far edge of the fields were sorely beaten lest they learn to not heed their mothers' words and become lost forever.

Stories aside, the woods gave us no trouble. No one ventured in, and nothing ventured out. At least not until she came.

I was a boy when it happened, in my tenth year. I was helping the men in the fields. It was nearly midsummer, and there was much to do. I stood up straight to stretch my back, and I saw her. I remember like it was yesterday. There was a small girl coming out of the woods. She stopped at the edge of our field and collapsed. I called out and alerted the men. It was my own father that made it to her first, and I was close on his heels. He lifted the girl like she was nothing. She was so very small in his arms and so very dirty.

We took her to my mother who was a healer. Now, my mother was quite heartsick at this time. My dear younger sister, Greta, had died from a pox, the same pox that left these scars upon my face, but it spared my life. As such, my mother took to the girl immediately. As no one knew who the girl was, my mother wanted to take the child in and raise her. My father agreed, as did the council, and so the girl, who my mother decided to call Therese, stayed to live with us.

I took to her too, though she didn't speak at all until the start of her second year with us. She was perhaps two or three years younger than I and a good playmate. I'll never forget the first word she spoke. "No!" she shouted at me one evening after dinner when I suggested that we play pirates in the courtyard again. I suppose she finally got sick of being the cabin boy while I was always the daring and handsome ship's captain. There was no shutting her up after that. She was always talking, despite Mother's best efforts. She could be loud and bossy, but she was always a sweet girl.

She was a bit of an odd one too. Something about her seemed to unsettle the other folk, and they warned their children away from her. She didn't have friends, just me, and I was an odd lad myself. I never much cared for the company of other children. I much preferred to sit quietly and listen while Father and the other men exchanged tales and drank beer after a long day. That wasn't for Therese though. She craved the companionship of other children. Pity all she had was me. I tried to make up for it. We played the games she wanted to play. I sat through countless tea parties with her and her dolly. I even went to the woods with her.

Something about the woods called to her. In the same way that most of us just naturally avoided it, she was drawn there. I would catch her sometimes, standing quietly and staring out at it. One day, after dinner, she said to me, "Brother, let's go for a walk." Mother and Father seemed anxious for a bit of quiet and alone time, and they quickly nodded their approval and left us to it.

It was a crisp evening. The grain grew high, and I could feel the coming autumn in the air. We walked down the beaten road through the village, past all of the houses and other families enjoying their quiet evening, while Therese babbled on about this and that. I listened to her, nodding occasionally, but mostly I watched the sky above us. I had never seen such unusual clouds before and didn't again until many years later. They were dark and hung low, but they weren't the thick, heavy clouds of a coming storm. These were wispy and swirled through the sky. It took me a moment to realize that we'd stopped walking and Therese had gone quiet. We had made it down the path through the field and were standing at the edge of the woods. The sun was setting behind the trees. They cast long shadows over us. I had the urge to turn on my heels and flee home, but I stood my ground. Therese slipped her hand into mine and smiled at me.

"Let's go just a bit further," she said.

I shook my head. "We shouldn't."

"Please," she said, drawing out the "ea" just so. Her eyelashes fluttered just barely.

I never was able to say no to her. She led me into the trees by the hand, and I heard her sigh as we took that first step into the woods. We didn't go much further in than that. She ran and jumped about while I stood right at the edge and watched.

No harm came to either of us, but we lost track of time. Soon Father came down the path bellowing our names. We scrabbled back into the field, but we didn't make it before Father saw us coming out of the trees. I was switched that night before being sent to bed, but it didn't matter. We did it again, over and over. We were just more careful not to be caught. Therese loved the woods, and I loved Therese.

The first death happened when I was on the cusp of manhood. It was the summer of my fifteenth year, and it was a year of plenty. Gardens boasted record amounts of vegetables. The branches of the trees hung heavy with fruit. The grain grew faster than we could cut it, the animals grew fat, and the weather was perfect. It was beautiful and sunny every day but never too hot to work, and cool, refreshing rain fell every night while we slept. I don't remember a summer like it before, and we've rarely had one since.

The morning they found the body was close to midsummer. Father and I finished our breakfasts like it was any other day, and Mother handed us our lunches and kissed us each as we left the house. Therese, of course, was still abed. I've never met a girl with a greater love of sleep than Therese, and as soon as the door closed behind us I heard Mother shouting at her to get out of bed and scolding her laziness. Father chuckled softly to himself and shook his head.

We started off through the village and passed the other houses filled with morning bustle. The sun was just coming up, it's rays touching the roofs, and the sky above us was blue. It was, by all accounts, a beautiful morning, but as we walked I felt an overwhelming sense of wrongness. A glance at my father confirmed that he felt it too. His usual morning joviality had faded and left his face grim and uneasy. His pace increased as we walked, and I matched his stride until we came to the edge of the field where he stopped abruptly. The air around us was still and heavy, and the scent of blood, coppery and rich, stung my nostrils. In the distance, at the far edge of the field, a large group stood assembled, and I could hear the low voices and panic coming from it.

Father took off running, and I followed him though I ended up wishing I hadn't. The grain flew by us, and the voices grew louder. I was out of breath and panting by the time we reached them. Tom, Father's good friend, stood at the edge waiting for us. The others were all crowded around something.

"What's happened?" Father asked. "Is someone hurt?"

Tom took a deep breath. "Well, you could say that." He nodded towards me. "Keep him back, yeah?"

"He's nearly a man." my father said, taking a step forward.

"Doesn't matter," Tom responded. "No one should have to see this."

I stayed where I was, feeling a bit stroppy that I wasn't to see the goings-on, as Father began to push his way into the group of men. As he touched the shoulders of two of them to part them, it was as if a spell was lifted, and all of the men began to step away. One young man turned, fell to his knees, and upheaved his breakfast violently. Others just turned away shaking their heads. As they moved away, what they had been standing around became visible to me, and I understood what Tom had meant. I'd never seen so much blood before, not even as a boy when I had helped Mother with the midwifery.

Father stood over a body that laid in the blood-soaked dirt between the field and the woods. Before I knew it, I was standing beside him though I didn't remember taking the steps that brought me there. Together we looked down at Frederik, another of Father's good friends and a man who I had sat beside near the fire after work and during long winter nights. My stomach lurched, and my throat tightened as I stared down at what was left of him. I had on many occasions helped slaughter animals, but I had never seen a man's insides before.

Frederik's throat and belly were laid open, and he was ravaged. Bits of flesh and organs were scattered near the body, but nothing was recognizable. His spine was visible at the bottom of the pit that had once been his stomach. The wounds on his neck were deep and savage. All around his head and shoulders the dirt was dark with blood. His eyes were open wide and staring up at the sky. A trail of small dark spots led up to the edge of the woods, drops of Frederik's blood. The smell of raw meat, punctured intestines, and bloodied earth made it hard for me to breathe.

A moment of silence passed between us, my father and I, and I'm sure it felt much longer than it actually was. Finally, Father took a deep, shuddering breath and said, "It must have been an animal."

"I'll go get Mother," I said and started to turn to go.

"No," Father responded. "There's nothing she can do now. We need the doctor from the next village."

"I'll go," said Tom from behind us. It startled me. In the silence I had forgotten he was there. "I'll take the cart and be back this afternoon."

"Thank you," Father told him before turning to me. "Go straight home," he said. "Tell your mother there has been an animal attack and I will meet her at the commons. Keep Therese at the house. Help her card the wool your mother intends to spin. I will be home later."

I turned without response and began to walk back up the path through the field. I made it about a dozen steps before something overcame me, a strong feeling of some sort of presence, and I began to run. I ran back up the path and into the village and passed all the houses until I got to ours. By then my breathing was ragged, and I didn't have time to catch my breath before I lost my breakfast next to the rain barrel.

I looked up and found Therese watching me with a smirk from the step. I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and told her to go inside.

She opened her mouth to retort about how I wasn't Father or complain about me bossing her about, but I interrupted before she could get a sound out. "Inside!" I told her.

She stood immediately and went into the house. I followed her and found Mother at the hearth putting bread on the fire. She looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

"There's been an accident," I said, trying to keep my voice calm and level, "an attack. Father wants you to meet him in the commons. I think he needs your help. Therese and I are to stay here."

She gave a nod as she gathered up her basket of healing supplies, but I shook my head. Her eyes grew wide, and she set the basket back down. She didn't ask any questions though. "Mind the bread," she told us before grabbing her shawl and leaving. Out the window I saw her take off at a run towards the commons.

"Where's the wool?" I pointedly asked Therese. Waiting was going to be agony, and I wanted to at least keep my hands busy.

We sat silently. Therese seemed to grasp the severity of the situation and followed Mother's example of not asking any questions. I don't know how long we carded for, but I remember feeling nauseated and at the verge of tears the entire time. Therese watched me cautiously, as if I would leap out of my seat and attack her at any moment. We had never shared such an uneasy silence before.

The worst part of the whole day came when a loud, long wail rose up from outside. Shivers raced down my spine, and my insides twisted. Frederik's wife had been told. I knew this without asking for what else could create such a mournful sound but a woman grieving.

The rest of the summer passed quietly and uneventfully. The weather continued to be beautiful, which felt wrong in some ways. How could we enjoy such lovely days when such a grave tragedy had befallen us? There was a service for Frederik in our little church. Everyone in the village went, of course, and Frederik's wife and children were well looked after afterwards.

After summer left us, things continued as they always did except now an aura of fear hung over us. Mothers kept their children indoors. Men traveled in pairs. No one wanted to go out after dark. The doctor who examined the body had concluded that Frederik was attacked by a large animal, probably a wolf, based on the wounds he had suffered. No one in the village had ever seen or heard a wolf before. Murmurs of a monster or unknown beast rose up in the commons, but they, like the talks of sending a hunting party in the woods, died down by Christmas. The fear, however, stayed.

Both Father and Mother made Therese and me promise that we wouldn't stray far from the house on our own, and we each had to swear on the old family Bible that we would never go near the woods again. Therese, like myself, had nodded solemnly during the oath, but I remember the look in her eye, an indescribable glint. Something mischievous but at the same time deathly serious and defiant. Therese loved the woods.

It was nearly midsummer of the following year when it happened again. A group of men decided to search the woods for the creature responsible. Father went with them. They left early in the morning and were gone all day and all night. Mother sat and stared into the fire, fretful, and let Therese and me stay up that night with her. They all returned safely, but shaken, the next morning empty-handed. They found nothing. Father didn't want to talk about it.

It happened again a year later, and again a group of men went into the woods. This time Father stayed behind. That was the year the holy men came, convinced that our village harbored a witch or a curse or some other such nonsense. Word of our tragedies spread though I don't know what truths and what falsehoods spread with it, and soon merchants stopped coming. It seemed only the bravest traders would grace us with their goods. It was a problem at first, but we adjusted. Father built a loom, and Therese took up weaving, which she was exquisite at. Father and Tom began regularly taking Tom's old cart to other villages to sell Therese's cloth and some of the other things we made. They always brought back goods we needed from other markets, and eventually no one complained anymore about the lack of fresh trade in our own commons.

Spring of my twentieth year, I asked Father for Therese's hand in marriage. He balked at first as the girl was essentially my sister, and our neighbors were sure to disapprove, but he relented eventually. We had come to love each other in a way that was much more than siblings, and it showed. With Father's blessing, I proposed to her, and Therese became my wife. Gossip followed surely, but not a word of it reached my ears. On our wedding night, she made me promise that one day I'd build her a little cottage in the woods. I couldn't tell her no. I loved Therese, and Therese loved the woods.

The summer after we got married there were no attacks, no deaths. We rejoiced silently. Our good fortune was not to last though. The following year just before midsummer another body was found near where the field and the woods met, and at that point it simply became a fact of life.

The years passed, and the village became smaller. Families moved away, and fewer children were born. Merchants stopped coming altogether. We made do.

I wanted nothing more than I wanted children. I wanted a family of my own to raise as my father had raised us. We tried for years, Therese and I, but it just wasn't to be. No child ever came from our union. I was saddened, and so was she, but so few couples were conceiving that we chalked it up to the curse. We enjoyed each other's company. While I missed the sound of children's laughter, our life together was pleasant. We spent much time together, cooked together, did the washing together, sang and played together, and went on walks at the edge of the fields together. I loved Therese, and Therese loved the woods.

I awoke one night when I was already well on my way to becoming an old man. I have always been a very sound sleeper, you see, but I had the strangest feeling. Therese wasn't in bed next to me, and I wasn't surprised. We'd had a fight earlier that evening. I still hadn't built her her cottage in the woods, and I had no good excuses except that the woods made me nervous. She had a fit and stormed out. She had a bit of temper, my Therese, and it wasn't the first argument we'd had over the years. She'd leave and go on a walk to cool down, and she'd always come home eventually.

The feeling I had felt like a clawing at my heart. It felt like something was wrong. The air in our home felt stagnant and cloying, and the blanket draped over me felt like it was crushing me. My legs were tense and restless, like I needed to move them in order to find peace. I sat up, threw back the blanket, and grabbed my clothing from the previous day from the floor. As I dressed and pulled on my boots I could feel some of the restlessness melt away, and I decided a walk in the cool night air was probably just what I needed in order to fall back asleep.

When I stepped outside our house the air was anything but cool and refreshing. It was hot, and the air was still and silent. I remember thinking to myself how odd it was but dismissed the heat and stillness outside for causing the heat and stillness within the house, and I went along for my walk.

I followed the path through the village, passing all of the dark, quiet houses on my way. I reached the edge of the village too quickly and stood looking out over the fields when I noticed grain at the far end swaying. There was no wind.

I was afraid. In that moment an icy hand gripped my heart and squeezed it tight. My knees felt weak, and my legs shook. Still I took a step forward. I felt compelled, like something had taken me over and was forcing me towards the waving grain. Slowly I moved down the path, step after wobbling step. I didn't make a single sound. It was as if the entire world was muted.

The moon shone full and bright above me through a gap in the dark, low clouds, and it was then that I remembered that it was nearly midsummer. If I was scared before, I was now terrified. This was how I was to meet my end. The fear and guilt I felt were overwhelming. The last time I saw Therese, we had fought. I let her storm out. I hadn't gone after her. Now I was to die, and she would never know how much I loved her. She'd be alone with no one to care for her. No one would build her her cottage in the woods.

I reached the end of the path and froze. The compulsion to continue forward was gone. I was left dumbfounded and standing still. The bright, full moon left my surroundings as bright as day, but I still couldn't register what was happening before me. When my mind finally came to terms with what my eyes were seeing, I gasped loudly and broke the silence.

There was Therese, my beloved, and there was blood everywhere. The ground was dark with it. Her back was to me, but I knew it was her. I'd recognize her anywhere. She was crouched low over a young man, one young enough to be our son, and, when my gasp rang out in the silence, she turned to look at me, her face covered in blood. Her eyes seemed to glow, like an animal's when they've caught a piece of light in the darkness. Her face was all wrong, her jaw was larger somehow, her features sharper, more savage, but it was Therese.

I took another deep breath and tried to speak, but she wasted no time. She was on her feet and off into the woods before I could make another sound. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't think. I just turned around and walked back up the path. I went back to bed once I got home and tried my hardest to return to sleep. I hoped it was all just a bad dream.

I awoke the next morning to screams and shouts. The body of that poor, young man had been found. The sun was already up, I had overslept, and there was no sign of Therese anywhere.

I never said a word about that night to anyone. No one ever asked me what happened to Therese, and I never mentioned it to anyone else. Everyone seemed to accept without a thought that she was gone, but they were awfully quiet around me after that.

Even though the deaths stopped after that year, I've never gotten past the feeling of being cursed. The village moved on. People came back. The merchants began to visit again. Children were born. Maybe I was the only one cursed all along. I don't know. I can't tell you how many nights I spent at the edge of the woods watching and waiting for her to come back to me. Most nights nothing happened, but every once in a while, I could swear I saw a set of eyes glowing in the darkness just past the edge of the trees.

She never did come back though. I built her this cottage, and I've grown old waiting. Sometimes I think I see something outside one of the windows or hear scratching near the door, but there's never anything there. I'm alone, and, from my deathbed, that night and her face still haunt me.

I loved Therese, but Therese loved the woods.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! You can also find me on wattpad ( https://www.wattpad.com/user/akmyers ) or at my website ( www.akmyers.net ).
> 
> This work was submitted to Nightmare Magazine 9/15/2020, rejected 9/24/2020


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